Experts said most people who have gotten a massage don’t know if that place was licensed. It’s the reason city leaders in Kettering are working to finish writing a new law, which they said would help make the city safer.

“The biggest thing is public safety. The general public does not know the difference between someone who has proper education, has had received formalized training, has taken a national test,” Cull said.

State leaders also are working to strengthen regulations on massage businesses across Ohio.

“It was just an awful neighbor to have for five years.”

That’s what a neighboring business owner told Miami Twp. trustees in the spring about a suspected human trafficking operation authorities said was posing as a massage parlor in state Route 725.

“It’s as simple as this,” Cull said. “Do you have a license? Let me see it. If you do not, then you cannot perform massage.”

Cull is among those pushing for the state law to require everyone to be licensed. She said it’s also about getting dangerous businesses out of shopping centers we all visit.

“They don’t want these sex businesses. They don’t want it in the city. We don’t want it in the state of Ohio,” she said.